“My son, how are you today?” The old man spoke in a scratchy tone that was laced with pain. Old man Dara was always in pain. He winced but waited patiently for an answer.

“I am not your son you old bastard.” The vampire who got stuck with guard duty hissed at his captive.

“Why do you treat me like this, a son shouldn’t treat his father so.” The old haggard began to well up with tears and winced again, coughing up a bit of blood. His tears began to fall and mix with the pool of red.

The vampire sat in an old wooden chair across from the metal cell made up of rusty bars. He launched himself across the room, his hasty departure from the chair, shattering the wood. “Shut up!” The vampire hissed, “Just shut up! Please, I can’t take it any longer.” He eyed the blood as he screamed. He’d been trapped in the pit for days, deprived of blood, it was a miracle he hadn’t sucked the ragged old cultivator clean. If he didn’t fear the mans ailment he may have already.

The old man crumpled, he slouched over, his heart shattered by Rothariel’s words and began to cry in the corner of his cell. The vampire returned to the wall where his broken chair lie in pieces and put his back to the cold stone, sliding down to the floor. He heaved a sigh and remained there, staring at the blood.

***

Drakar ducked beneath a shimmering blade, it was a double edged sword that shined with heavens radiance. The agile vampire then continued into a procession of dodges that resembled an exotic dancer, his body like a zephyr. Each swing of the golden sword missing only by a hair.

“Cast out of heaven to do the archangels dirty work. How do you feel being heavens hound?”

The angel attacked with more fervor, his swings increasing in ferocity and intensity alike. Drakar leaned back and slid, his back bending with the flexibility of a cat. His reflection was absent in the flawless metal as

it passed over him.

“A dog is no match for me.” He teased.

Drakar’s body flung upward and rotated, he raked his claws across the imperial armor of heaven's bloodhounds. The nexus energy imbued into his claws ripped five long crevices, revealing the angels back, right between its wings. Screams, high pitched sounds of pear agony reverberated across the grasslands as the poisonous energy from the nexus seeped into the beast.

Drakar welcomed the cleansing when it came, as his long lifetime was filled with the boring humans. The seraphims presented a challenge, maybe not the one he was fighting in that moment but in the time since their arrival he had been in more life and death situations than his entire lifetime prior to the invasion.

Unfortunately the dog writhing before him became quite a bore. It was time to end it. The angel was still screaming and kneeling in pain, its body shaking. Golden blood leaked from its wounds. Drakar held out his hand, Palm up and a familiar power loomed there. His hand pulsed and a tiny black flame appeared, it was about the size of a marble. He strolled up to the angel with a predatory gate and turned his hand toward the creature. He pressed the flame into the open wound and suddenly the volume of the screams raised tremendously. So loud in fact that creatures from the surrounding forest could be heard screeching and howling. One moment there was nothing but screams and in the next it was silent aside from the creatures in the forest. The angels mouth still hung wide open as if it were screaming but it’s vocal cords were clearly ravaged beyond repair. The tiny flame pulsed and suddenly an explosion of black fire consumed the angel whole. The heat from the inferno cleared a twenty meter radius of grass. Drakar turned and walked away, leaving the angel to burn. The attack he used was known as the Flame of Purgatory.

An hour had passed before Drakar could find a proper meal to replenish his world energy. He had drained himself using the Flame of Purgatory, following the fight with the Seraphim He'd stalked the surrounding forests seeing as the grasslands were bare, probably due to their battle. Magical beasts roamed the forest floor as he leapt from tree to tree. His graceful movements didn’t disturb the leaves at all and left no sign of the vampires presence. He’d come across multiple small, rank two beasts which, while they could satiate his hunger, wouldn’t be able to bring him back to full functionality. He couldn’t return to the clan without being at his peak for two reasons. One, he might look weak and two, if another vampire challenged him he wanted to be ready.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Below him a pair of rank three silver horned bison trotted beneath the tree he crouched in. One relaxed in the shade and rested while the other tore grass free from the ground and consumed it. Drakars vampire sight clearly displayed the beasts many meridians coursing through its spiritual body and he licked his lips. Although the bison were only rank three, their sheer size made up for the weak rank. Rank was based on one's level which was determined by the amount of yuan in the body. One with more yuan would be higher than one with less while one with purer yuan could be higher than the former. Most larger magical beasts naturally had a higher amount of yuan rather than it being in a purer state. None of that mattered to Drakar, only that yuan was a mixture of qi and world energy and that meant the more yuan, the more world energy. The two beasts would be enough to return him to his peak condition.

Drakar suppressed the nexus energy in his claws as it was infectious and could lower the quality of the world energy and prepared to pounce when he heard voices somewhere further into the wood. That perked him up, humans meant that they were probably cultivators. He followed them, maneuvering through the thick foliage, careful not to ruffle a single leaf. The vampire clans of the northern grasslands were especially known for their agility. He dropped below a branch and caught it with his hands, swinging and propelling himself towards a tree far ahead of him. He caught the nearest branch, swung his body upward and landed gracefully in the tree. The voices were closer now and he could practically smell the world energy on them. So much so that it made him dizzy for a moment. Drakar scaled the tree and hid among the thick foliage, awaiting the arrival of the humans.

He didn’t wait long. A procession of men wearing robes strolled into a small break in the trees and the sunlight glittered off their weapons. Each of the men wore a sword at their side and the rays of light reflected off the blades. The only one who differed in uniform and weapon, Drakar assumed was the leader. The man had a long braid that ran the length of his back all the way to his butt. The hair was pure white, so much so that it resembled snow. On his chest was a white rose.

“What do you think that was?” Said one of the young men.

“I’m not sure,” replied the white haired man. “But if we could hear it from an hours worth of jogging away it isn’t to be taken lightly. Be alert, we all go home tomorrow, just one more night out here.” The men looked haggard, like they’d engaged in multiple scuffles recently which wouldn’t surprise him, the number of seraphim and dragons alike had increased recently in the badlands. “We’ll set up camp here for tonight, we’re still a good distance from that noise and these forests are filled with mostly docile magical beasts.

Drakar couldn’t help but smile at the comment, he was far from docile and very hungry, these cultivators would hopefully do more than bring him back to his peak. Their world energy might even supply him with at least a months worth of sun walking. The vampire prince was confident in his ability to dispatch them easily but since he was still weakened from his fight he decided to wait until night to attack.

***

Night fell quickly, the sun and golden sky replaced by shadowy clouds drifting across a dark backdrop. Rowan awoke to the faint sound of ruffling and at first, assumed it was his second in command, Ajax. He’d insisted he take first watch, as he had the best senses due to his ability to mimic the traits of magical beasts. He had to pee so he got up and moved aside his tent flap and was immediately greeted by the stench of blood. Rowan threw aside the flap and drew his blade with his right hand. In his left, a blue flame ignited revealing a grizzly seen. The tents were situated in a circle around a campfire and as he shined the light from his left hand on each tent in turn, pools of blood could be seen in front of each one. The pool in front of the tent directly across from him was still growing, the blood spreading out across the dirt and grass. From that same tent a figure emerged. At first he assumed it must be an extremely powerful cultivator to be able to murder all his men without any of them alerting him.

The figure stepped into the light of his flame and spat out a mouth full of blood. “I don’t know how so many of my brothers can survive on that stuff, it’s disgusting.” Rowan paled, feeling as if his skin had taken on the same pasty color of the figure standing before him. The vampire wiped his mouth with a shred of clothing that clearly came from one of his comrade and discarded it. The demon arched his back, an audible crack followed and he continued to say “Shall we begin, I assume you're stronger than the rest, they weren’t even powerful enough to properly satiate my hunger.”

Rowan roared, his cultivation base circulated through his meridians, invigorating him. He took his left hand where the flame hovered and slid it across his blade, setting it alight with blue fire.

The vampire hissed in response and suddenly just disappeared…